Virginia Martin

UAB Predicts COVID Hospital Patients Will Double by Christmas

Thanksgiving holiday travel and gatherings have doubled the number of COVID-19 patients being treated at UAB Hospital. “We reasonably expect, based on the numbers of these cases diagnosed every day over the last two weeks, that the rate of cases we see will more than double again over the next few weeks,” Dr. Sarah Nafziger, co-chair of UAB’s Emergency Management Committee, said during a joint UAB and Jefferson County Department of Health press conference today. “That means we expect a doubling by Christmas Day of the number of patients who are in our hospital being treated, if not before,” Nafziger said. She said the spike to 159 COVID-19 patients at UAB is a “significant increase” that has again required a reduction in the number of surgeries and procedures that require inpatient beds. Read more.

by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.

Birmingham Won’t Defund Police, but Public Safety Plan Includes Training, Social Workers and Civilian Oversight of Complaints

The city of Birmingham said “no” to defunding the police but “yes” to social workers partnering with police, “yes” to improving police training and giving citizens a role in overseeing complaints, and “yes” to better services with which officers and members of the public can interact. Those are some of the conclusions in the 100-plus-page report Reform and Reimagine Birmingham Public Safety, issued Thursday after a months-long look at how to improve interactions between the city police force and the rest of the community. Mayor Randall Woodfin and City Council Public Safety Chairman Hunter Williams rolled out the report during a press conference in which they promised more transparency and accountability, enhanced efforts to connect with businesses and the public, and an ongoing commitment to change for stronger relations with constituents. Some of the reforms will go into effect almost immediately. Others may take a year or more, Woodfin said. The report came from the city’s Public Safety Task Force, which included a former U.S. attorney, a retired detective, an anti-police brutality advocate, a lawyer and the co-founder of Black Lives Matter Birmingham. Woodfin said the city also will need the assistance of health care providers and citizens to make the reforms work over the long term. Read more.

by Nick Patterson

Slated For A Mega Prison, Brierfield Residents Demand Answers

Down a two-lane road in Bibb County, about 10 miles from Montevallo, the unincorporated community of Brierfield has one restaurant, a post office, and a small convenience store that takes cash only. About 1500 people live in the area. The state wants to build a 3,000-person prison here, one that will be larger than any existing facility. Brierfield is one of three locations slated for new mega prisons as part of a plan to address chronic crowding and violence in the state prison system. Brierfield residents are pushing back. Read more.

by Mary Scott Hodgin, WBHM

DOJ Sues Alabama Over Violence in Prisons

The U.S. Department of Justice sued Alabama and the state Department of Corrections Wednesday over excessive violence in state prisons. The lawsuit, which is the culmination of a years-long investigation into constitutional violations in Alabama’s prison system, also alleges inmates are routinely subject to sexual abuse and excessive force at the hands of prison staff. Read more.

by Gigi Douban, WBHM

Alabama’s COVID-19 Numbers Surging to New Records Daily, Hospitals Taking Steps to Make Room for More Patients

Like much of the rest of the nation, Alabama day after day is seeing record-setting COVID-19 numbers, as new cases associated with the Thanksgiving period begin to make their way through the health care system. In BirminghamWatch’s weekly analysis of the trends in new cases, hospitalizations and deaths, virtually every measure reached new highs every day of the past week. The 7-day moving average of daily new cases stood at 3,337 on Wednesday, and the 14-day average was 2,919.21. Both averages are more than double their levels of a month ago. Read more.

by Robert Carter

Jones Calls for Bipartisanship in Farewell to Senate, Does Not Address Talk Biden Favors Him for AG

Outgoing U.S. Sen. Doug Jones bid farewell to his colleagues during a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon, urging them to set aside partisan politics and restore the American people’s faith in government. Jones was elected to the Senate in a surprise upset in 2017, becoming the first Alabama Democrat elected to the Senate in 25 years. He was beaten handily in last month’s election by former Auburn football head coach Tommy Tuberville. During his speech Wednesday afternoon, Jones said he’d expected not to be re-elected. “I remember right after I was elected, I was talking to a friend of mine. … We talked about the possibility that we could work on a bill as important as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” Jones said. “I knew, though, such opportunities were not likely, especially in what I knew to be a three-year window and not knowing what the future would hold — although, I’ve got to be honest, I had a pretty doggone good idea when I got here. If there’s one thing my mama always taught me, it was to be realistic about things.” Some reports Wednesday put Jones as President-elect Joe Biden’s top pick for attorney general, while others said he was in the top two contenders. Jones did not mention those reports during his speech Wednesday, but he did promise to continue “working toward those same goals too, even after I leave this place.” Read more.

by Sam Prickett

Gov. Ivey Extends Mask Order Into 2021

WBHM Governor Kay Ivey is extending Alabama’s Safer-at-Home order until Jan. 22. In making her announcement, she said there will be no additional changes or adjustments.

by Janae Pierre, WBHM

Birmingham Council Will Require Self-Storage Developments to Fit In With Community

The Birmingham City Council has codified a new policy for developing self-storage facilities in the city, replacing the moratorium it placed on new self-storage developments last year. Read more.

by Sam Prickett

Jackson Among Several Counties in Northeast Alabama Seeing Spike in New COVID-19 Cases

There have been sharp increases in new COVID-19 cases over the past few weeks in Alabama, but the biggest spread of the virus is currently concentrated along the northern tier of counties — particularly in Jackson County, nestled in the northeast corner of the state. Data from the Alabama Department of Public Health issued Monday shows that Jackson County led the state in new cases per 100,000 inhabitants. The county of 51,736 residents had a seven-day average of 73.9 new cases per day. Multiplying out those numbers to fit the standard measurement for cases gives the county a rate of 173 cases per 100,000 population. It is one of six counties in Alabama to measure more than 100 in this statistic, according to data compiled by The New York Times. As the state and the nation see COVID-19 numbers climb higher and higher, northeast Alabama is experiencing an outbreak of its own. Read more.

by Robert Carter

De-Escalation and Implicit Bias Training for Police Pushed, but Effectiveness Can Be Limited

If practice really does make perfect, can the right kind of officer training make police shootings and excessive force less common? Some advocacy groups and politicians believe it can. Reforming training, particularly with the addition of de-escalation or implicit bias programs, is a popular proposal in the ongoing national conversations about police use of force. Appropriate force is especially pertinent in Alabama right now. The ACLU has reported that there were 13 officer shootings in the state as of June 30, 2020, an increase of more than 60% from the 2015-2019 average of 8.2 shootings in the same months. The national campaign 8 Can’t Wait’s eight police reform policies includes requirements for officers to de-escalate situations when possible and to try all alternative actions before using deadly force. President Donald Trump’s “Executive Order on Safe Policing for Safe Communities” in June included “scenario-driven de-escalation techniques” among its proposed federal programs for improving policing. The Alabama Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission, which sets the standards for police training statewide, is also planning to add a new implicit bias course to its police academy curriculum, according to Law Enforcement Academy-Tuscaloosa Director Randy Vaughn. On paper, de-escalation, implicit bias and similar training programs reduce violent encounters between civilians and police by giving officers tools to change internal prejudices and resolve situations peacefully. But there is little uniformity among police departments on what this training includes and how it is implemented. Groups such as the ACLU of Alabama also say that, at the end of the day, a training seminar is not likely to change mindsets enough to make a real difference in the use of force. “Those (types of training) are not what is going to fundamentally shift the culture of policing and interacting in our communities,” ACLU of Alabama policy analyst Dillon Nettles said. Read more. This is the third piece in a package on policing in the Birmingham area. In coming days, we’ll be presenting stories about the local debate over “defunding” the police and high incarceration rates among Blacks. Previously in the The Legacy of Race: Policing Police Brutality Brought Early Alabama Reckoning. Nation Faces Similar Questions Now. Dogs, Firehoses Were a Precursor to Today’s Violent Protests

by Sydney Cromwell